Blow Us All Away
by ifonly13
Summary: "If we lay a strong enough foundation, we'll pass it on to you, we'll give the world to you and you'll blow us all away, someday someday." :: Glimpses into the 'someday'
1. Lily

**_Lily_**

"Okay, the sitter will be here in ten minutes," Kate says, rushing to pack her bag, her heels and coffee balanced in one hand as she gathers files. "Can you get to the university in time if you hang out and wait for her?"

Castle takes the mug from her hand before the liquid can spill and stain her ivory blouse. "I'm good. Class doesn't start until ten thirty so naturally, I can wander in at ten forty-five and torture a bunch of undergrads."

She shakes her head, dropping her shoes to step into them. "Was that fun for you when you were in school?"

"Nope. But now that I'm on the other side and have all the power, it's pretty cool." He turns around just in time to see Jake using Reece as a ladder to get to the fridge. "Go, Mom. I'll handle mini you and the terrible two. Oh. Good band name there."

"You are not turning our children into a band," she insists as she slings her bag over her shoulder. "Kids, behave for Elizabeth today, okay?"

Castle manages to catch the twins as the two of them topple only to be tripped up by Lily as she runs around the breakfast bar.

"Mom! Can I come with you?" she begs, little hand holding tight to Kate's blazer. "Please!"

Kate crouches down, brushing a hand over her daughter's hair. "Gotta get dressed fast, Lil. Mom's running late."

The girl dashes off for the stairs promising to be quick.

"So," Kate says, finishing off her coffee as Castle redirects the twins' energy toward their train track looping around the living room. "I'm taking Lily which should make Elizabeth's life much easier."

"You going to be able to entertain her at work though?"

"Don't worry about the girls. Go wrangle some college students."

Lily reappears on the stairs, shoving her feet into sneakers. "Ready, ready, ready. Let's go, Mom!"

Kate leans over to kiss Castle goodbye before taking her seven year old's hand. "See you tonight, boys!"

They take the subway in, Lily sticking close to Kate even as she insists on standing by the pole herself, her body long used to the sway and bump of the trains through the underground tunnels. Once Kate opens the door to the precinct, Lily turns on her charm, chatting with the desk sergeant after going through the metal detectors and keeping the attention of one of the detectives from Vice in the elevator.

As Kate settles into her office with her paperwork and case reviews, Lily plops onto the couch with a coloring book and crayons that Kate will be finding between the cushions much like the couch at home.

By the time lunch rolls around, Lily is close to bouncing off the walls, acting more like her brothers than herself.

"Lil?" Kate asks, stopping her daughter from spinning in one of her detectives' chairs. "Want to go upstairs?"

"Yes, yes! Upstairs!"

Lily races up the flight of stairs across the precinct, headed straight to the locker room. By the time Kate turns the corner, Lily is halfway changed into a pair of leggings and t-shirt Kate keeps in the locker room for her, bouncing up and down as Kate changes into her own workout clothes.

Forty-five minutes later, Lily has mastered the eye gouge and has a nasty right hook started by the time Kate calls it quits for lunch.

"Remember," Kate says over a meal of peanut butter and jelly with potato chips from the vending machine. "No using hand-to-hand-"

"On my brothers," Lily sighs. "I promise."

* * *

"Mom, can I borrow your lipstick?" Lily shouts from her room, still leaning forward toward her mirror to put the perfect wing on her cateye.

Kate appears in the doorway, the exact right shade of lipstick in her hand. "No need to yell," she states, passing over the tube of lipstick.

"Okay, but how do you do that?"

"What?"

Lily waves toward the doorway. "You know. Just show up two seconds after I call for you?"

Kate steps in, taking a comb from the pile of hair ties and brushes on the countertop. "I'm a mom. We've got a spidey sense about our kids."

"You sound like Dad," Lily scoffs, touching up the freshly applied lipstick as Kate plays with her daughter's hair, twisting it up into a low ponytail, a strand wrapped at the base to hide the hair tie and pinned into place with Kate's deft hand.

Her mother's chin comes to rest on Lily's shoulder and when she looks in the mirror, Lily swears she's seeing double. "You look beautiful, Lil."

Lily lets her head fall against Kate's, smiling at her reflection. "Had good genes to pull from with you and Dad," she deflects.

"No. You're beautiful all by yourself," Kate insists, pressing a light kiss to Lily's cheek. "But your dad will kill us if we make him late for his big night."

They both laugh as Lily grabs her clutch from the end of her bed. "We both know Dad takes way longer getting pretty than we do," Lily reminds her mother.

Both Reece and Jake are waiting on the couch, noses stuck in their phones until Kate taps them both on the head. "Boys, time to go."

" _Papa est même pas encore prête_ ," Reece mumbles as he gets to his feet.

Lily watches as her mother scolds her brother about using English at home as they all gather by the front door to wait for Kate to fetch their father.

She knows the saying, that the first love of daughters will always be their father and when Rick Castle comes out of her parents' bedroom, her mother's fingers caught in his hand, Lily gets it. Her dad aged well, his hair long gone grey but still as carefully styled as it was when she was little, and the glasses he finally caved to make him look distinguished in his tux.

"Everyone ready?" he asks, looping an arm around Kate's waist and tugging her close to his side. "Because the boys look handsome and my girls, well, they're drop-dead gorgeous."

The lot of them pile into the elevator before jostling for a seat in the back of the towncar waiting for them along the curb for the drive uptown to the Hayden Planetarium. The event feels like one of the hundreds she has attended for both of her parents. Pretty dresses and flutes of champagne being passed around and too much small talk. This time, she spends the evening talking about starting college and her latest win at a Krav Maga competition and she doesn't mind it too much, especially since her mother snuck her a glass of white wine during her second walk around the room.

After her father accepts his Pulitzer, Lily ducks away from the crowd to wander through the halls. She only has another month before she has to pack up everything from her room, her life and move to Washington DC for four years, not just a puddle-jump for her mother to attend a vote. It's terrifying and exciting and-

"Lily!"

She turns, waiting against the wall for Nick to catch up with her. The man has all of the good-boy looks from his father with his mother's waving blond hair and ever since she was little, she's found Nicholas Ryan attractive. His natural charm is only enhanced by the navy suit he's wearing, the grey striped tie that hangs loose around his neck.

"I saw you leave," he greets, stepping in close to her. "Everything okay?"

Lily likes to think that she inherited her father's silver tongue but damn if Nick doesn't keep her tongue-tied. "Uh, yeah. Just needed a break."

They stand together down the side hallway, projected stars sparkling overhead and music leaking out of the huge party.

"Excited for Georgetown?" he asks after a couple of minutes.

Lily nods, shifting to face Nick. "Yeah. Dad's already going a little overboard on getting family time in before I move out."

"I remember that," Nick laughs. "It doesn't get better. Every fall, Mom and Dad were coddling me as if I were never coming back."

"At least Dad can just tag along with Mom when Congress is in session and visit. Bit harder to come up with an excuse for your parents to appear in Boston."

Nick shrugs, moving so the side of his polished shoe nudges at the toe of her heels. "I'm gonna miss you, Lil."

She doesn't have a chance to think before Nick cups her cheek, tilts her head up, and touches his mouth to hers. For a moment, she doesn't do anything until Nick steps forward, backing her against the wall.

And then she panics.

She punches him, her foot hooked around his calf so that the momentum carries him to his ass on the floor.

"Lily, what…?" he gasps, rubbing at his left cheek where her knuckles caught him.

"I… Nick, I'm so sorry," she stutters. "Are you okay?"

He sits up, still looking shellshocked. "I'm fine but Lil, why did you…?"

She steps back, holding out a hand to help him to his feet. "I don't know. I just… freaked."

"And that may have been a little out-of-the-blue," he admits, refusing to let go over her hand. "But you've gotta know that I like you, okay? Just, you know, before you move to DC."

Lily swallows the rising panic instead of socking him again. "All right. And I like you too but I'm leaving, Nick, and that's not the right time to start anything."

Nick leans in and Lily doesn't pull away as he kisses her cheek. "I'll wait around for you."

And somehow that scares her more than the idea of admitting that she might be falling in love for the first time and it's nothing like she expected.

* * *

She struggles for the first year. She thought she was going to be so good at this, able to walk through the Northwest Gate and own the place. She spends almost one night a week on the phone, sobbing and ranting to her mother about how bad she is at this job until Kate reminds her that she wouldn't have been chosen for the position if they didn't think she could excel.

(A month after she gets reamed out in front of her fellow teammates, she gets a note in the mail with her mother's beautiful handwriting across it. _Life never delivers anything that we can't handle._ She gets it framed and hangs it over her bed as a reminder to herself.)

But after that first year, she gets her feet under her and gets damn good. Even the older Secret Service agents look to her for input during some of the situations they plan for and finally, Lily feels like her mother might be right.

"Rook, you got eyes on Bluebird?" she hears through her earpiece.

It makes her growl, keeping pace with the First Lady as she makes the rounds at the fundraiser, staying close but not so close that Rachel Hanson feels crowded. "Told you not to call me that," Lily reminds her coworker even while smiling at one of the state representatives as they wander by.

Her gaze sweeps back over the guests, her eyes catching on a jumpy man skirting around the tables toward Rachel.

"Vanderhausen, you see him?" she asks, quickening her steps to get closer to the woman she vowed to protect.

The next half dozen seconds happens in slow motion.

Rachel is mid-laugh when the twitchy man shoves through the last crowd of people in his way. Lily hears the other agents shouting instructions in her ear but it fades into white noise as her training kicks in. Her gun is in her hand before she can consciously think to draw it but it's someone else's job to catch the guy. She pushes off on the ball of her foot and hits Rachel just as she hears the boom of a gun firing off, their bodies hitting the ground in a tumble.

"Got him," she hears as if through thick water as she lifts up off the First Lady.

"You okay, Mrs. Hanson?" Lily questions, crouching back onto her heels to give Rachel room.

Rachel grimaces, rubbing at her elbow where it must have smashed into the floor. "Yeah but I don't think you are, Lily."

It's only then once the danger has been neutralized that she feels the burn through her abdomen and her questing fingers come away sticky and red.

She hears Rachel calling for help a moment before hands cover the wound and press down hard, a strangled whimper escaping even as she passes out.

* * *

 _Oh god, it hurts_ is her first thought when she wakes up.

A pained groan vibrates through her throat, her brow furrowing as she squeezes her eyes shut as if it could block out the pain.

"Lily?" someone asks from her side and the bed dips as the person leans onto the mattress. "You awake, sweetie?"

"Mom?" she mumbles, her head turning to the right on the overstuffed pillow. "Feel sick."

Her mother's cool fingers brush across her forehead. "Yeah, that's the anesthesia. Gonna be like that for a little bit."

"Got shot," Lily whispers, her voice weak. "Mrs. Hanson okay?"

"Did your job, Lil. She's fine."

"Mmm… good." And then she fades back out.

The next time she wakes up, both of her parents are asleep on the tiny loveseat across from the bed and the curtains are closed to the moonlight outside.

Her stomach feels thick and heavy. She curls her fingers up to investigate the feeling and winces when she presses down on the bandage.

"Hey, hey. Don't poke at it," a familiar voice murmurs, catching her hand and lowering it gently to the bed.

Just his voice has her sucking in a shuddering breath and unable to stop the tears from falling over her cheeks. "Nick, what're you doing here?" she chokes out.

Nick leans back, grabs a tissue, and wipes at her face. "My best girl got shot. Nothing was going to keep me from you."

"Your job…"

He laughs, scooting the uncomfortable visitor's chair closer. "I think the NYPD can operate one detective short for a couple of days."

"'m cold," Lily sighs and Nick's hand disappears to grab another blanket, carefully tucking it up to her chest.

"Better?" he asks.

When she opens her eyes to answer, he's right there. "Yep," she says a moment before he kisses her so lightly she swears she imagined it. "Let's go on a date. A real one."

"You're a little laid up, baby," he responds.

Lily wants to smack him the way her mother smacks her father's head when he's being an idiot. "After. Wanna be able to do things to you. And I'm not your baby."

Nick's head whips around, making sure her parents are still asleep. "Lil, shush."

She can feel the dopey grin on her face but can't stop it, the drugs already pulling her back into sleep but she fumbles for his hand, clutching at it once she finds him. "Nick. Nick, I love you."

* * *

Lily's phone rings in the middle of the night and she rolls over to grab it, the scar on her stomach pulling as she answers.

"This is Castle," she mumbles, struggling to wake up.

"Lily, it's Dad. Something's happened."

She's up before he's done talking, the phone on speaker as she runs for the closet for clothes. "Is it Mom? Dad, is Mom okay?"

"Mom's fine," her father reassures her as she hops on one foot trying to get into her jeans. "And your brothers are fine too."

"Okay," Lily sighs in relief, standing in the middle of her bedroom, dressed and ready. "Then what?"

Her father hesitates on the other end of the phone and Lily is a second away from yelling at him like she did when she was a teenage when he finally speaks. "Nick was shot. Critical condition at Presbyterian."

"I'm coming home," she says, already fumbling for her duffel bag, checking the clothes and essentials that live in her go-bag.

"You've got a seat on the next flight out of Reagan," he promises. "Reece is going to pick up up at LaGuardia and get you to Pres."

As soon as she hangs up the phone, Lily slides on the leather jacket her mother bought her for graduation, grabs her bag, and starts jogging down her block for the Metro.

* * *

The waiting room is crowded with their family, bodies in every chair with a few people on the floor playing with the babies, but they all look up when she stumbles through the elevator doors.

"Where is he?" she manages, her tears returned after she thought she had them tamed on the car ride over, Reece pointedly ignore his sister's quiet sobbing. When no one speaks, Lily forces herself to swallow down the need to scream. "Please. Where's Nick?"

Sarah's the first one to talk, stepping forward to wrap Lily in a hard hug. "He just got a room, moved there after they finished operating. He's holding on."

"Can I… Can I see him?"

Her boyfriend's sister takes her hand, tugging her down the hall a couple of steps away from the eyes in the waiting room. "Lil, he's going to look bad. Really, really bad. But the doctors think he has a good chance with recovery so just keep that in mind, all right?"

Lily follows in a haze as Sarah brings her to a room, a glimpse of the end of a bed visible through the slim window in the closed door. She murmurs her thanks to Sarah before stepping inside.

Uncle Kevin and Aunt Jenny are huddled in a too-small armchair at the bedside and both of them startle when the door clicks shut.

"Lily," Jenny sighs, clambering off her husband's lap to pull Lily in for a hug. "You came."

She can't look away from her boyfriend there in the bed.

This is what he had to have felt like last year when he drove four hours to see her in the hospital.

It makes her sick.

"Of course I came," she finally responds. "What happened? Dad didn't tell me."

It's Kevin who goes through the events, the details cut and dry. A police report about a Robbery take-down gone south, the guilty man panicking when the cops rushed his apartment and started shooting. That one of Nick's fellow detectives went down in the line of fire and he refused to leave his man out in the open and went after him.

His bulletproof vest didn't protect against the shot to his shoulder or the two deep grazes on his legs.

"Can I stay?" she asks, reaching for the plastic folding chair propped against the wall. "I need to… I just want to see him."

She collapses into the chair, brushing her fingers along Nick's arm, careful of the IV taped down at his elbow. His left shoulder is thick with bandages and she can see the lumps of gauze on his legs under the thin hospital blanket, his face pale with blood-loss.

Lily drops her head onto the bed, her hair tumbling over his hand and her lips at his knuckles. "You have to be okay, Nicholas Ryan, you hear me?"

* * *

"Lily? What're you doin' here?"

His quiet voice pulls her out of the first bit of sleep she has gotten in two days, curled up on the armchair with a blanket her mother tucked up to her chin. But when he calls her name again, she stumbles out of the chair toward the hospital bed.

"You're awake," she breathes, her hands shaking when she drags her fingers through his hair. "Scared the shit of out me, Nick."

He laughs, wincing when it pulls something. "Turnabout," he groans. "You came up here? For me?"

She wants to smack him. "I love you, you idiot. Didn't you do the same thing for me just last year?"

"Mmm, yeah, I did." His grin is loose and lopsided when he looks up at her, his right hand snagging the ends of her hair. "Gonna kiss me, baby?"

Lily tries a glare but the expression that had her brothers cowering when they were little just makes him smile wider. "Not your baby, Nicholas," she mutters in reminder as she leans down to press a rough, punishing kiss to his expectant mouth.

She pulls away when one of the nurses comes in, checking his blood pressure and pain levels before leaving them alone once more.

When she sits back in the folding chair, Lily swallows down the remaining fear and takes Nick's right hand between both of hers. "Nick, will you marry me?"

"Got a ring for me?" he jokes but it falls flat when she reaches into her back pocket and holds out his father's wedding ring.

"Yeah, I do."

He watches her and she hopes he sees how absolutely serious she is about this. And she is. This isn't a knee-jerk reaction to his getting shot, though she did only ask Uncle Kevin about using his ring yesterday and got both of his parents' blessing to ask him.

Finally, he turns his hand over and tickles the cup of her palm, scratching along the smooth silver of the wedding band. "Yes. Of course I'll marry you, Lily Castle."

"Good," she laughs, surging up onto her palms to kiss him, his hand clutching at her hip.

"Not just because I got injured, right?" he asks after she slides Kevin's ring onto the fourth finger of his right hand, the left still swollen from the trauma.

Lily hasn't moved, leaning over him so he's forced to look at her. "I have loved you since I was eighteen and you kissed me at the planetarium-"

"And then you punched me," he reminds, interrupting her with a soft smile.

"So no," she promises. "This isn't just because you decided to be a hero. It's because I can't imagine my life without you in it."

He pushes up and she ignores the wince of pain as he kisses her. "No more hospital beds for a while, though."

"We'll do our best, okay?"

Nick hums as he starts to fall back asleep. "Love you, Mrs. Ryan."

"Love you too, Mr. Castle," Lily whispers as she kisses his cheek gently.


	2. Jake

_**Jake**_

The family spills into the apartment, a roar of noise overtaking the quiet that Rick had enjoyed for the day. It makes him smile, his fingers pausing over the keyboard as the children swarm the living room with their school things.

"Snack and then homework," he hears his wife tell the kids before she appears in the doorway to the office.

She looks tired, leaning against the bookshelf with her work bag weighing down her shoulder. He knows this latest case had her spread thin, trying to balance the politics of dealing with a high-profile victim and making sure her people were doing their best to honor the slain news anchor.

"You get your writing done, babe?" she asks, dropping the bag next to her desk and stepping out of her heels.

"Yeah," he responds, saving the document one last time before shutting his laptop. "Listen, why don't you take a bath and I'll handle homework and dinner."

The pure gratitude that blooms over her face tells him he made the right choice; even if the expression didn't, the light and sweet kiss she gives him definitely makes it clear. "Thank you," she sighs, already drifting toward the bedroom and closing the door to the chaos of their family.

He takes a deep, calming breath and goes out into the madness. Raising Alexis was so easy compared to raising three kids at the same time. Not that Lily and the boys are troublemakers but it is two more bodies to wrangle than he was used to.

"All right, who has homework?" he shouts over the noise.

Everyone talks at once, digging into backpacks for worksheets. He gets Jake and Reece settled with their spelling words, hands Lily a pencil for the addition practice she has before moving into the kitchen to start working on dinner.

"What sounds good, kids? We can do pasta or chicken tenders or-"

"Pizza!" Jake exclaims, spelling words abandoned as he dashes from the table to the kitchen. "I want to make pizza, Dad!"

Rick hesitates, glancing toward the bedroom. He knows Kate would want him to insist that Jake do his homework right alongside his siblings, that he not get preferential treatment because he loves to be in the kitchen.

Hell. Rules were made to be broken and he'll take the punishment Kate might dole out for having his son help him with dinner.

"Come on, bud," he says, lifting the six year old up onto the counter. "We'll make the dough and while it's rising, you do your homework, okay?"

Jake's face lights up as Rick goes to gather the ingredients, dumping them on the countertop beside him. "Promise, Dad. I'll do all my homework for pizza."

And he does. As soon as the dough is plopped into the big bowl and covered with saran wrap to rise, Jake lets Rick help him to the floor and scurries back to the table to finish his spelling sheet just as Lily and Reece pack up their assignments.

"Leave the homework out," he reminds, opening a bottle of wine to let breathe on the counter knowing Kate will need it. "Mom and I will check it over after dinner."

The worksheets go in a pile on the side table and the two children disappear upstairs. But Jake keeps his head down, a little furrow of concentration on his brow that reminds him of Kate when the whiteboard doesn't make any sense to her, until the last word is sloppily spelled out on the paper.

"Done!" he proclaims, adding his sheet to the pile of finished work before bounding back into the kitchen. "My dough done?"

Rick pokes at the lump of dough where it strains against the plastic wrap. "Looks it. Ready to shape it, little chef?"

Out comes the stone cookware, a heavy rectangle that Jake got for his last birthday, and the boy hefts the dough out of the bowl and drops it on the stone, little fingers already mushing it into place while Rick goes behind him and smooths it all out, making it even as Jake creates the crust.

"Let me grab the pizza sauce and cheese," Rick says, keeping his eyes on his son to make sure he doesn't fall off the counter.

"No! Want to try something else," Jake mutters, focused on the last lump of dough in the corner of his cookware. "Peanut butter."

"Peanut butter?"

"Yeah. And something spicy. That red sauce you put on chicken?" he questions, looking up for the name.

"Sriracha sauce?"

"Yes! Maybe some chicken, too," the boy continues, assessing his work before glancing up.

"Jake?" He waits for his son to meet his eye. "You know I like adventurous food but you think everyone will like a peanut butter, sriracha, and chicken pizza?"

Oh no. Bad decision, questioning him.

Jake's face falls, his pleased expression threatening to turn to tears fast. "You don't think it'll be good?"

"I just… You know Lily is picky about her food and we want everyone to enjoy your dinner, right?" he scrambles, trying to make it better before things go downhill.

"You don't think they'll like it," Jake sighs, so dejected already. "We can do normal pizza then."

He can't give Kate pizza with peanut butter, sriracha, and chicken, not with the way she looked when she got home and he knows Lily won't touch anything that she doesn't already like. Reece might be okay but…

"Hey. What if we made another small pizza for you to give out as samples?" Rick suggests. "Take some of this dough and do your special pizza with that? Would that work, bud?"

Jake sucks in a shuddering breath as if fighting back the tears and nods. "Okay."

Rick brushes his hand over Jake's curly hair as he goes to grab the smaller stone circle Kate had brought from her apartment when she first moved in. "This a good size for your special?" he asks, gaining Jake's approval before cutting out a chunk of the spread dough and switching it to the small circle.

"Here, you do your special and I'll be quick with the pepperoni pizza so I can help with yours."

Jake presses out the dough again and Rick sees that he's already learning, careful to keep the dough the same thickness and smooth out the big lumps so that by the time Rick sprinkles the last of the cheese on the pepperoni pizza, the special dough is ready.

"What's first, Chef Jake?"

And just like that, his little chef boy has his groove back, pointing directions to Rick to get the right things. They spread the sriracha first, just a thin layer because Jake knows it makes his tongue tingle, before adding the chicken that Rick chopped up into chunks.

He stops Jake, though, before the boy can add dots of peanut butter. "It doesn't cook well," Rick reminds him. "Gets all runny like when we put it on our s'mores, remember?"

Jake regards him carefully before putting the spoon back in the jar. "We can maybe add it near the end?"

"Sounds like a plan."

He puts the stoneware into the oven while Jake keeps a watchful eye.

After fifteen minutes cooking, Rick takes the pizzas out and lets Jake add his peanut butter, watching as it oozes between the chicken.

"Look good?" he asks the boy who has his hands on his hips, surveying the dinner.

"Yeah. Looks good."

Rick lets the pizzas cool before he cuts them into slices while Jake sets the table, up on his toes to put the plates in the right spots.

"Go get Mom and I'll get the others," Rick asks, already headed for the stairs while Jake runs for the master bedroom.

By the time Lily and Reece come downstairs and Kate reappears looking sleepy - must have taken a nap after her bath - Rick has the pizza plated. Jake climbs onto his chair, looking overjoyed at the slice of his special pizza on his plate and even more thrilled when he sees that Rick also has a slice.

"We've got two options," Rick announces, pouring wine for him and Kate while his wife gets the kids water. "Pepperoni or Jake's Special."

"You made a pizza, Jake?" Kate asks, sitting down at her spot next to him. "What type?"

And god, if he didn't already love her so much it hurt, he falls for her all over again when she doesn't wrinkle her nose as their son explains the ingredients in his pizza. He nearly drops their wine when Kate asks Jake for a bite to try, watching in quiet excitement as Jake saws off a piece with a little bit of everything for his mother.

Rick sees the way she fights not to make a face but Jake doesn't. He beams as she eats his piece of pizza and then nods, declaring it 'not bad at all,' a moment before she reaches for her wine.

"Good job with dinner, Jake," Kate compliments as their other children ignore Jake's special pizza for their classic pepperoni. "I'm so proud of you."

Once the kids are in bed and they're doing the dishes, Kate nudges him with her hip, gesturing to the leftover Jake's Special on the counter.

"He's your kid."

Yes. He certainly is.

* * *

This is all too much.

School never was his forte; his older sisters coasted through their courses, naturally intelligent and not plagued with the procrastination that haunted Jake. Even Reece got his applications done quickly, sending off the Common Application to his top schools before Thanksgiving break.

And now the rest of them are doing another trip to the Smithsonian and he's stuck sitting at their dining room table with his laptop as he stares down the applications.

It's too much pressure. He has a half sister running a private investigator firm and raising a family with apparent ease, Lily is starting her second year at Georgetown with her eye on a Secret Service position, and Reece speaks five languages near-fluently, already having spent time abroad.

Everyone found their thing and all he can do is cook.

"How's it going, Jake?"

His father's voice makes him jump, his fingers skittering across the keys as he startles. "Thought you were with Mom and the others," he mumbles, clicking back to his essay.

"Nah," Rick says, sitting next to him. "Only so many times I can look at the Lincoln's top hat before I get bored and then your mother gives me that glare and well, easier to stay home. Besides," he continues, pointing to the laptop screen, "I thought you might want some help with that."

Jake drops his head to the table with a groan. "I can't do this, Dad. I can't."

"You can." There's the same confidence in his father's voice that Jake heard when his mother was doubting her run for Congress, the tone that conveys absolute belief in his words. "There's no timeline for this. You can take a year off, travel the world if you want. You know Mom and I would support you through anything."

"What if I fail?" Jake bursts out. "No one in this family has failed and I don't want to embarrass you and Mom."

His dad laughs, loud and filling the house and for a moment, it makes Jake feel like shit - his own father is laughing at him - until Rick looks him in the eye, completely serious. "Of course we've failed," he reassures. "And Jake? I've failed the most in this family."

"Yeah right," Jake scoffs, clicking through the pages of research on culinary schools.

"Hey, would I lie?"

"Maybe, to make me feel better," he mutters.

Rick shakes his head, pushing the laptop away from Jake's fingers. "I was your age when I wrote my first book and it took me another two years to find someone to even look at it. Jake, I had a whole folder of rejection letters that was taller than the book I was trying to get published. I failed over and over until someone took a chance on me."

"But what if I'm not good enough? Restaurants fail all the time and what if I just flop?"

"Then you come home and we figure something out," his father says. "But let me just say that you will always regret not trying to pursue this dream and that starts with finishing these college applications and seeing what happens."

Jake takes a deep breath and nods. "Can you help me?"

"Of course. Whatever you need."

By the time the rest of the family gets home and starts shedding their winter gear from the trip to the Mall, Jake has finished his college applications and has dinner going for everyone, multiple pots and pans cooking on the stovetop.

When Lily starts to protest one of his creations, Jake waves her off. "Normal food tonight. Promise."

(It doesn't stop him from sneaking a pinch of cinnamon into their hot chocolate later that night and laughing at Lily's face when she takes her first sip.)

* * *

What was he thinking?

He can't stop his hands from shaking on the walk from the apartment, shoving them into the pockets of his dress pants while waiting at the crosswalk. All he wants to do is turn around, run back up the street, and hide in the apartment for the rest of his life because this was a mistake.

The light changes and he steps off the curb with the rest of the crowd until he reaches the corner of Greene Street.

They finished the etching on the windows last night, installed the new front doors just the other week, and Jake had slipped the health inspection grade into a protector on the street-facing windows as soon as he finished cleaning them to a shine.

He knew opening a restaurant so soon after graduating could lead to a massive stumble but he got cocky with all of the praise from Wylie and his parents' unwavering support and he bought the corner place down the street to fix up.

Time to face the music. If he's going to fail, he's going to face it down with as much bravery he can muster.

Once inside his kitchen - _his_ kitchen - everything falls into place. He knows what he's doing in a kitchen. He gives orders to the waiters, reinforcing instructions they were told a week ago when they were hired. He re-finalizes the menu, tweaking only one of the courses.

Until the first glasses of wine have been poured out in the dining room and his sous chef has started on the appetizers.

The anxiety attack hits him so fast he can't stop to breathe before he stumbles into his office, shutting the door to the noise and chaos of his kitchen. Jake wedges himself into the footwell of his desk, his back pressed into the hard wood as he squeezes his eyes shut. He feels nauseous, the world spinning around him, and he can't do this.

He doesn't know how long he hides under his desk when someone knocks on his door.

"Stay out here; I'll be fine," he hears before the door shuts again and the click of heels is heard on the wood.

A moment later, his mother's face appears next to his. "Hey. What's going on?"

"Mom," he croaks out. "I can't do this."

She sits down right beside him, taking his hand and pressing it to her chest, a move they're both familiar with by now after years of his anxiety attacks. "Breathe with me, Jake."

No matter how many times she talks him through his panic attacks, he still feels so very angry at her in the first few seconds. Breathe? He's drowning and she wants him to just inhale and exhale like everything is normal?

His fingers curl into the neckline of her dress - it's getting so wrinkled and why can't he pull himself together so his mother can get off the floor? - and focuses on the steady rise and fall of her breathing under his palm.

"That's it," she murmurs. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. You've got this, Jake."

Like magic, the panic pours out of him and his mother pulls him against her side, cradling his head to her shoulder as he comes down from the anxiety in a shaky rush.

"We're so proud of you," she says. "No matter what the critics say tonight, you get to come home to your family and know that we don't care whether you fail or make the front page of the Food section. You're so smart and brave, my little chef."

He starts to laugh off the old nickname before she flicks his ear, the same motion that she used on them all when they misbehaved.

"No. You've come so far from peanut butter, sriracha, and chicken pizza. They're going to love your food," Kate promises, scooting back from the desk as Jake unfolds from the footwell to help her up.

When she opens the door, her Secret Service agent straightens up but Jake catches her before she steps into the hall and tugs her into a hug.

"Thank you so much, Mom," he whispers. "For everything you and Dad have done for me."

Her lips come to his cheek, touching a kiss there before smiling at him. "Always, Jake."

Jake escorts her out to her seat, welcoming the hugs from his father and siblings, tickling his little niece at her sides before rushing back to the kitchen.

He has a restaurant to open, after all.


	3. Reece

_**Reece**_

It's a secret language to them whenever their families get together.

As soon as their aunts and uncles spill through the front door, Reece runs to find his cousin in the rest of the excited bodies.

" _Dia dhuit!_ " Reece shouts over the noise until Nick's head pops up near the couch, the Gaelic hello catching the eldest Ryan's attention.

The loft is absolute chaos but the two of them exist in a little bubble near the windows, giggling when the rest of the family can only look at them in confusion as they babble in Gaelic, trading stories.

Languages come so easy to Reece having inherited his parents' love of words. He talked the earliest of their children, nailing English fast before Kate started feeding him tidbits of French on her nights to watch the kids so Castle could write, speaking slowly as she gave him his bath so he could catch onto the meaning of her words. Esposito added Spanish to the mix when Castle would bring the kids to the precinct, hanging with Reece in the break room and looking nothing like the hardass detective he appeared, which made Ryan jealous.

One day, Kate came home to find her four year old talking to his stuffed lion in Gaelic.

As soon as Reece and Nick had learned enough of the complicated language from Ryan, it was impossible to tear them apart. If you tried, one of them would throw out some long phrase and the other would laugh and they both had such devilishly charming grins that no one tried to reprimand them too much.

"Boys," Jenny interrupts as they talk excitedly. "What do you want for dinner?"

Their heads go together and both sets of parents start to groan because the next words out of their sons' mouths aren't going to be English.

" _A prátaí bácáilte, le do thoil_ ," Reece states as Nick nods enthusiastically.

Rick groans. "Not Gaelic. Please, boys."

Nick begins to scowl before Reece stands up, stretching himself to every inch of his little body and meeting his parents' eyes. " _Una papa al horno, por favor._ " Reece looks so proud of himself and Nick doesn't help, snickering behind his back.

Rick crouches in front of his son. "You know I don't understand either of those languages, right, bud?" Reece nods, glancing to his cousin for help and finding that Nick has abandoned him for Lily's company, tugging at her ponytail until Lily stomps on his instep and sashays away. Rick touches his son's chin, redirecting his attention back to the matter at hand. "And while it is wonderful that you like learning languages so much, it's not fun to not know what you're saying."

"Sorry, Dad," Reece says.

His father ruffles his hair before pulling him in for a tight hug. "Just remember that not everyone knows Gaelic or Spanish or…"

"French!"

"Yeah. French," Rick grumbles, ticking at Reece's sides until the boy is squirming against his chest and breathless, squealing with laughter. "Now, in English, what was your dinner request?"

* * *

He travels abroad for the second time right before moving to college.

Each sibling got a trip somewhere the summer preceding the start of their freshman year, a gift from their parents on the one condition that the entire family had to go but the graduate got to pick the location.

Lily had them packing up for a trip to New Orleans after Kate let it slip that she and their father may have conceived their first born during a cross-country motorcycle ride, insisting that she see the city that so _inspired_ them. It's here that Lily gets her first tattoo, a tiny fleur-de-lis drawn by Kate that gets inked just below her ankle.

Jake got to pick the trip for their summer first once he pulled rank ( _by seven minutes, Jake, why can't you just let it go?_ ) and they booked tickets for a week in Sicily where he spent the time holed up in the kitchens of locals, learning how to make homemade brioche and arancine, torta setteveli and genovesi ericine that he brings back to their villa each night.

Reece, though, finds it hard to narrow down a single place to visit. Back in sophomore year of high school, the Ryans brought him along with them to a trip to visit Ireland and he doesn't want to repeat a location he's seen already so he spends hours on his laptop, researching countries and cities to find the right one.

Eventually, he finds the perfect place.

They take a plane from Palermo to Kilimanjaro International Airport and spend another week watching giraffes, zebras, and lions wandering the Serengeti from the porch of a beautiful cottage.

It doesn't hurt that he picks up a little Swahili from the men running the safari camp, able to joke with them as they lead the entire family out on a sunrise expedition to find wildebeest.

That night, his mother finds him sitting on the patio, his feet propped up on the rough wood railing with his laptop perched on his thighs looking frighteningly like his father in the midst of one of his writing spells.

"Hey, Mom," he greets without looking away from the screen.

He hears her drag a chair over moments before her feet appear next to his on the rail. "This was a good choice, Reece," she says, leaning back in the chair. "Not what I expected from you, though."

Reece glances up from the email to Nick. "What'd you expect?"

She shrugs, taking a drink of her wine. "Somewhere you speak the language. Always thought you'd be like Jake, going off and hanging with the locals, coming back unaware that you were still chatting in Chinese or French."

"I thought about it. About doing Shanghai or Madrid. But that can't be as fun for everyone and I wanted…" He pauses and shakes his head. "It's silly."

"What?"

He sighs. "It's the last pre-college trip for us and I wanted everyone to enjoy it."

Kate steals his hand, squeezing it hard. "You know you didn't have to do that, right? That you could have picked anywhere in the world and we all would have had fun."

"I know, Mom. But this is pretty great. Can't beat this view."

"Stanford's going to have some pretty great views too. You excited to head out there?"

Reece grins, shifting the laptop the little side table and reaching over to steal a sip of his mother's red wine, ignoring her half-hearted glare. She never minded them trying alcohol before twenty-one as long as it was done in their own home; hell, it was Kate who taught all of her kids to do shots the right way as soon as they turned eighteen.

"Yeah. The school looks great and it'll be cool to see what the West Coast is like, but…" his gaze wanders out to the savannah as he collects his thoughts. "But also scared. What if I don't love it like Lily loved Georgetown?"

"Then you finish out the year and transfer to a school you do love but Reece?" She waits for him to face her, knowing that he is failing at hiding the shame in his eyes. "Picking a college is hard and it's almost ridiculous for you to know what you want to do with the rest of your life at your age. So if Stanford isn't right, then we'll do everything we can to help you find the right fit."

He slumps in the chair, his head tilted against the woven back rest. "But everyone else had it figured out. You and Dad and Lily and we both know Jake is going to be amazing at Johnson and Wales and what if I'm just… not as good at this?"

"You think you're going to be the first person to struggle through this choice?" his mother asks him in the same tone that she used when interrogating them all about who decided it was a good idea to slide down the staircase on storage box lids.

"Mom, I'm…"

"No, Reece. Listen. Your father got kicked out of pretty much every high school he went to which is not something I encourage you to emulate," she states with a little wink. "I chose a school to get as far away from home as possible and it didn't hurt that Stanford was a really good college. But when your grandmother was killed, I couldn't stay there anymore and be far from family so I moved back. Lily may not have told you, but she changed her major three times before finding the right choice. All I'm saying is that you find your own way and you know we'll be here for you no matter what."

He gets up, ignoring the shooting pain as he stubs his toe on the chair leg, and wraps his arms around his mother's neck. "Thank you."

"Always, bud." She stands, gathering up her wine glass to finish off the last sip of red. "Time for bed. I heard we're going to try to spot some elephants tomorrow and I want everyone rested for that."

If there were a way for him to summon a few of his mother's favorite animal to the front of their savannah villa right this moment, Reece knows he would not hesitate.

* * *

They hardly see him during the summers, settling for skype when timezones match up and long emails.

Freshman year, he gets an internship in Argentina doing some translation work at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires.

Sophomore year, he goes to live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to assist with creating businesses with locals.

Junior year has him in Saudi Arabia to work for a college friend's family as a translator.

He does a winter internship in Beijing during his senior year, writing up the English translations of government contracts.

Each time, he comes home with stories and gifts for his family, little trinkets that made him think of each person while living in another country.

* * *

Reece is in the midst of cramming for finals when he gets the email which he ignores for three days in favor of figuring out the complicated conjugations for his Chinese final.

He doesn't open his emails until he's moved everything back home, boxes of dorm things crowding his childhood bedroom as he procrastinates unpacking. There are tons of promotional blasts from places he shops that he deletes immediately knowing the dates for sales have long since past.

The one from the United Nations, though, makes him stop his deleting spree.

He responds immediately to set up the interview for the following week, his hands shaking.

A month later, he has a job that he would have killed for.

"You don't need to move out," his father insists as Reece flicks through apartment listings in the city. "You know we're happy to have you here."

"Scared of being a true empty-nester, Castle?" Kate teases from the kitchen while making dinner.

Rick scoffs. "Never going to have an empty nest with Alexis's babies."

"Plus, you've still got Jake with his restaurant opening up in the next couple of months," Reece comments, eliminating another possibility. "I don't need you worrying about me too."

"Well, always going to worry about you, bud," his mother reminds him. "Part of the package deal. But Dad's right. You're more than welcome to stay here until you get your feet under you at the UN. A twenty-five minute subway ride isn't bad and you'd get Dad's cooking each night."

Reece closes his laptop, sliding it across the dining room table. "I'll think about it."

* * *

"Where are you bringing us?" his mother asks once again, her fingers holding tight to his hand as he laughs

"Just trust me, okay?" he insists, opening the door to the little cafe with his back so he can lead his parents in. "Not going to walk you both off some sidewalk curb so you break your ankles."

Reece guides them to the table before he removes the blindfolds he tied over their eyes. "Surprise?"

The cafe is empty save for them, lights dimmed with music playing softly. He jogs to the maitre d' stand, coming back with two wine glasses that he places in front of their places before repeating the path to return with plates of food.

"What's all this?" his father asks as Reece adds a basket of foccacia to the table.

Reece grins, stepping back. "Just enjoy dinner. And I promise I didn't try to cook anything; this was all Jake's doing."

He makes himself scarce, nibbling on the second loaf of bread and watching as his parents have dinner. He always knew his parents were in love; they made it obvious when the kids were growing up as there were more than a few times that he and his siblings walked into the kitchen to find Rick smearing chocolate on Kate's nose to make their mother giggle or trudging in from visits with friends to see their parents cuddled on the couch, asleep with The Lord of the Rings playing on the TV. Little things that solidified the fact that Kate Beckett and Rick Castle truly adored each other.

Reece sees it again from his seat by the entrance to the cafe. How his father lets his mother steal a bite of his braised lamb, even helping her get a little bit of the yogurt sauce onto her fork to go with the meat. Her smile gets softer around him, no longer the face she adopted from breaking criminals in the interrogation room and brought to the Senate floor to argue for future laws.

Once they're done, just the last sips of wine left in their glasses, Reece clears the table.

"This was lovely, Reece, but what was the occasion?" asks his mother, pushing at a spare chair at the table for him to sit.

He just slides the black leather billbook onto the table in front of Kate, nodding at it with a grin. "Open it."

Just like every dinner out, Rick reaches across the table to grab the folder, always the one to slip his card into the little slot near the top but when he flips this one open, he stops the process of procuring the credit card.

"Reece," he gasps, handing the folder over to Kate. "What…?"

He waits, though, to answer his father until he gets to see his mother's mouth drop open. "What are these?"

"You're retiring in a month, Mom, and you and Dad have done so much for us. I know it couldn't have been easy raising all of us and doing both of your jobs so," he gestures toward the billfold holding the two plane tickets, "I pulled some strings at work with a friend and she got you a two week vacation on Santorini. Lily helped with the airfare and Jake hooked you up with one of his culinary school buds who works on the island so you'll be eating like royalty the entire trip. Alexis insisted on contributing so there's a spa day she threw in there for you both as a thank you for all of the free babysitting." He takes a breath, twisting his hands in his lap. "It's not nearly enough to thank you for raising us the right way but-"

He gets cut off when his mother pulls him up out of the chair into a rib-crushing hug. " _Oh, mon doux garçon_ ," she murmurs into his ear. "Thank you."

There's barely a second after his mother releases him before Rick wraps him in another hug, his familiarly wide hands patting his back. "You're a good man, Reece. Even if I don't understand what you're saying half the time."

It makes him grin, clapping his father on the back in return. "Love you, Dad." He steps back, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "Lily and Jake wished they could be here but, you know, protecting the First Lady and finalizing restaurant details but they all send their love and promise huge hugs when they make it here for the celebration."

Reece disappears for a moment, coming back with a plate of loukoumades, the little dough puffs drizzled in honey and dusted with cinnamon. "There are these too," he says, setting the plate down. "Not going to lie, I snuck a few when Jake was baking them and they're good."

"Everything your brother makes is good," Kate jokes, licking honey off her fingers after popping one of the puffs into her mouth. "Oh god, and these are no exception."

He cleans up while they eat the puff pastries, trying his best to leave the cafe in good condition since Jake put his name on the line to get use of it for the night, and after Reece locks the door behind the three of them, Rick loops his arm around his son's shoulders to pull him close.

"I did okay, Dad?" Reece asks, earning himself a pair of gentle slaps over the back of his head from both parents.

His mother leans over, touching her lips to his cheek. "You silly boy," she sighs.

"You did wonderful, bud. We're so proud of the man you've grown up into," Rick continues. "As long as you're happy."

Reece doesn't hesitate, grabbing his mother's hand and making them a tight knot on the sidewalk at the crosswalk. "I am so thankful I have you for parents," he states, willing them to hear just how grateful he is.


End file.
